John R. Cash (February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003)
Cash is one of the best-selling music artists of all time,
having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. His
genre-spanning music embraced country, rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel sounds. This crossover
appeal earned him the rare honor of being inducted into
the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls
of Fame.
PORTLAND, OREGON (1959)
Buddy Holly (Charles Hardin Holley)
(September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959)
If you took out a map of the United States and traced a line
beginning at New Orleans and running up the Mississippi
River to Memphis, the tip of your finger would pass through
the very birthplace of rock and roll—a region where nearly
every step in its early development took place and where
nearly every significant contributor to that development was
born. But if the foundation of rock and roll was mostly laid
down within 100 miles of the Mississippi River in the mid-
1950s, the blueprint for what would follow required the further contributions of a young man born 700 miles to the west on
this day in 1936: Charles Harden Holley. Writing and performing
under the name Buddy Holly, this Lubbock, Texas, native would
have an influence on rock and roll that would far outlast his
tragically shortened career.
On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock music festival opened on a
patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New
York town of Bethel.
Promoters John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and
Michael Lang originally envisioned the festival as a way to raise
funds to build a recording studio and rock-and-roll retreat near
the town of Woodstock, New York. The longtime artists’ colony
was already a home base for Bob Dylan and other musicians.
Despite their relative inexperience, the young promoters managed
to sign a roster of top acts, including the Jefferson Airplane, the
Who, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin,
Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many more.
Brett Tuggle (1951/1952 – June 19, 2022)
Fleetwood Mac’s former keyboardist Brett Tuggie died
Sunday. He had been diagnosed with cancer.
Jim Seals was a one-half member of the American soft rock band
Seals and Crofts who are world-famous for their hits like summer
Breeze and Diamond girl. Jim Seals, half of the 1970s band Seals
and Crofts, died at the age of 80. Seals, half of the ‘Summer
Breeze’ duo Seals & Crofts (below).
